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Author: Optimal Health

Optimal Health > Articles by: Optimal Health

The Many Fabulous Uses of Apple Cider Vinegar

HealthOptimal Health

More than just a fancy salad dressing, apple cider vinegar (ACV) is everyone’s favourite health tonic. Made from apple juice, it is fermented twice. The first to produce a hard apple cider & the second to become a cider vinegar. The longer fermentation process creates a rich bioactive vinegar which provides antioxidant & antimicrobial benefits. The thick accumulation of yeasts & acetic acid bacteria form ‘The Mother’. Sounds scary but ‘The Mother’ contains proteins, enzymes & friendly bacteria which give the ACV its murky appearance & provides the most benefits.

Get shiny hair

Give your locks a lustrous shine as you rinse your hair after shampooing. Fill a (BPA-free) bottle with ½ tablespoon of ACV & a cup of cold water. Use the solution after shampooing several times a week. ACV will boost your hair’s body & shine. It won’t happen overnight but it will happen.

Throw Away Your Skin Toner

Dilute one part ACV with two parts water & dab over face with an (organic) cotton ball or pad. Use after cleansing & before applying your moisturiser. The acetic acid is a great astringent for the skin. You can also dab neat on your face & leave overnight. ACV will help to fade age spots or acne scars.

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7 Steps To Support A Loved One Who Has An Addiction

HealthOptimal Health

Whilst it might be the case that the ultimate resolution of a loved one’s drug addiction is their enrolment in a drug rehab program, there is no shortage of ways in which you can help them before and towards that destination. So many actions and steps can be taken by those who care deeply for someone addicted to drugs that it can pose the problem of deciding which to follow.

In this article, we will narrow down all the various ways you can help a loved one with drug addiction to just seven. Of those seven, you could choose to follow just one of them, but we recommend you try as many as possible for the best results. That way, you can determine which has the most positive effect to continue along that path, hopefully ending with your loved one agreeing to enter drug rehab.

#1 – Ensure You Educate Yourself

Drug addictions can come in many forms, and each drug will cause various symptoms and behaviours of which you should be aware. We have placed this at #1 because you must learn as much about the addictions your loved one is facing, especially if they are drug related. That education also includes researching which drug rehab facilities will be the most suitable for your loved one’s treatment.

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15 Motivational Fitness Quotes That Will Inspire You

Fitness, HealthOptimal Health

No matter at what level anyone partakes in exercise and fitness programs, there has to be motivation within that individual to do so. For some, this comes easily; for others, they seem to be on a roller coaster, whereby some days, they cannot wait to get out of bed and go jogging first thing in the morning, and other days, they just want to pull the duvet over their head and go back to sleep. Let us be honest; we have all been there at least once.

It is certain everyone who does exercise has moments when their ‘get up and go’ has got up and gone! In those moments, there are several ways in which you can seek the motivation that you need, and one of the best is to recall a motivational quote. These are words that have been written or spoken, more often than not, by famous people that provide some inspiration and motivation to carry on.

So, we thought it would be useful if we did some research and found what we believe to be the best motivational quotes and, in particular, those motivational quotes that could relate to fitness and exercise. We found loads but have narrowed them down to 15 of the very best. For all quotes, we have credited the person to whom the original words belong. Some are sportspeople, others are celebrities, and you might even see one from a former US president.

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3 Dental Problems You May Experience On A Skiing Holiday And How You Can Avoid Them

DentalOptimal Health

The furthest thing from your mind when you are lying on a beach enjoying the warm sunshine might be skiing and winter sports, but for those who do enjoy them, it can mean a trip to the emergency dentist. Now, dentists and winter sports might seem an odd association but if you ever ask someone who has experienced one of the many problems winter sports and the extremely cold weather conditions that come with them can create for teeth and gums, you will understand the connection.

Skiing obviously takes place in climates where the temperature is well below freezing and often the locations in which it takes place present several risks, including risks relating to dental health. Read on, and you will discover several ways in which skiing and cold weather can adversely affect dental health, some of which may surprise you.

Accidents

Whether it is skiing or another winter sport such as snowboarding, common features of them both are that they are done at speed and usually take place in outdoor environments that have plenty of obstacles. This creates conditions where accidents do occur and if you are unfortunate enough to have an accident that causes trauma to your jaw, then the possibility of broken, chipped, or lost teeth exists, as does potential serious damage to your gums.

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Why Employers Must Recognise Drugs Addiction Is A Disease, Not A Choice

HealthOptimal Health

When an employer is confronted with the reality that one of their employees is a drug addict and must enter a drug rehab program, there are several views they may take on that scenario and they cover a wide scale of opinions.

At one extreme will be employers who say the employee is a criminal, that drug addicts have no place in their business, and that anyone who chooses to take drugs is to be fired. At the other end of the scale are employers completely sympathetic to their employee’s predicament, who may have experience of a loved one recovering from drug addiction and who even offer to finance their employee’s recovery.

As you read both of those viewpoints, which do you lean towards? The answer is crucially important if you are an employer and speaks to whether you believe drug addiction is a choice, a crime, and punishment is the answer, or that drug addiction is a medical condition that needs treatment.

Ultimately, how you run your business and your terms and conditions relating to drug addiction within your workforce is a matter for you. However, we ask you to pause for a second and understand one thing. It has been proven by countless medical studies of those addicted to drugs that their drug addiction is a disease rather than a lifestyle choice.

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Why Some Drinks You Might Have At Home Are Surprisingly Harmful To Your Dental Health

DentalOptimal Health

If you have listened to and understood the advice from dentists and other dental experts, you will know exactly what you need to do to keep your teeth and gums healthy. The list includes brushing and flossing every day, regular check-ups at your dentist, and to be conscious of what you eat or drink so that you avoid most of the foods and drinks which can cause the most harm to your dental health.

Whilst there seems to be little confusion over what brushing and flossing entail, nor what a regular visit to the dentist means, the same cannot be said about what foods and rinks are regarded as healthy or harmful to teeth. There are the usual suspects known to be harmful like sugary drinks, desserts, cakes, and sweets, for example, but when it comes to knowing what definitively constitutes what is healthy or not, there is some debate and some confusion.

One of the bigger areas where some confusion exists is drinks that are harmful to teeth. These are drinks you most people have at home, and you may too. So, what are the drinks that seem healthy for teeth, but which many dentists and dental health experts say can harm them? Here are three main culprits.

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Laser Dentistry – How Modern Technology Can Improve Your Dental Health

DentalOptimal Health

In the world of dental health care, the vast array of research, development, and advancements in technology mean that many of the treatments and procedures which the dentists of today can perform would have seemed like something from science fiction movies to the dentists of yesteryear with their basic equipment.

Come forward to today once more, and the list of dental treatments available to you that have appeared in the last 20 years or so, is becoming ever greater. One such modern development which is becoming more widespread amongst local dentists is laser dentistry.

If you are thinking laser dentistry involves your dentist zapping the harmful microscopic bacteria that exists on your teeth and gums, like a scene from Star Trek, unfortunately, are going to be disappointed. However, laser dentistry is no less useful and can play a huge role in helping to maintain and augment the health of your mouth, teeth, and gums.

What Is Laser Dentistry?

Hopefully, you already know what a laser is. If not, it is a highly focussed beam of light. Any dentist who offers laser dentistry is likely to have not one, but two different types of laser. One will be a laser suitable for working on soft tissue which includes your gums. The other laser will be suitable for treating hard tissue, and that would obviously include your teeth.

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7 Sure-fire Ways To Improve Your Dental Health

HealthOptimal Health

Whilst your dentist will surely be skilled and experienced to rectify many of the dental issues that you may have, their influence on your dental health is nothing compared to one other person. That person is you, and maybe, as with many other individuals, you are not fully aware of the impact you can have on the health of your teeth and gums.

What is more, it is not that difficult to achieve more for the wellbeing of your teeth and gums than your dentist ever could by taking responsibility for your oral health To prove it to you, here are 7 ways that can be achieved.

Use The Correct Toothbrush: For some reason, many people think the harder the bristles are on their toothbrush the better it is. In fact, the opposite is true as hard bristles can irritate gums and cause them to bleed. If possible, use a toothbrush with soft bristles, and those with small, round brush heads have an ability to reach more parts of your mouth.

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Wax on with Jojoba

HealthOptimal Health

Did you know that jojoba (pronounced ho-HO-ba) is not an oil but a natural wax ester? Of more than 350,000 identified plant species, jojoba is the only one which produces liquid wax esters which are more similar to human sebum than commonly used vegetable oils.

Sebum is a waxy substance produce by our sebaceous glands which helps to waterproof our skin and create a waxy barrier. This barrier prevents foreign invaders such as bacteria penetrating our skin which can cause acne and infections. When using soaps and beauty products which are full of harsh chemicals, sebum is stripped from the skin, leaving it susceptible to infections and irritations.

The jojoba plant is native to North America and was highly valued by the Native Americans who used it for skin ailments and as a skin restorer. Jojoba is now successfully grown naturally in Australia without the use of chemicals or pesticides. The jojoba beans are cold pressed to ensure all the vitamins and nutrients are retained. Jojoba oil should be a deep rich golden colour so if you find clear or pale jojoba then is has been refined with chemicals or heat treated which damages its precious nutrients.

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Why Employing A Local SEO Company Will Benefit Your Medical Centre

Health, MarketingOptimal Health

If your medical centre has a website and you would like to see its ranking on Google improve, then the most effective way to make that happen is by using SEO. Now, SEO can seem hugely complicated, and many have tried and failed to make it work, however, if you follow the advice of the SEO specialists at www.seoperthexperts.com.au and employ a local SEO company to do your SEO for you, then your website should be ranking higher before too long.

You note that we say ‘local’ SEO company and one of the reasons we stress that is that in almost every field when you are dealing with a local company, rather than national or international ones, there is a strong likelihood that the costs will be lower. One of the reasons for that is due to the complex nature of SEO.

What larger companies tend to do is outsource many aspects of the work to other companies, and of course, when that happens and each individual company is trying to make a profit, it drives up the price of each element of the SEO campaign, and thus the overall price your medical centre will have to pay increases.

It is also the case that you might employ a different company for each aspect of the campaign so you will have a copywriting company for the content, a company that are experts in optimising your website, another whose sole role is to build backlinks and so on. Again, when you are paying multiple companies, rather than just one, the total cost is almost certainly going to be higher, than if you employ just one company.

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